Photos in the Cloud

[birdman325]

To my surprise, when I turned on iCloud for Photos, I was told I have about 79GB of pictures on my computer (I didn't think I had anywhere near that many pictures) and I would therefore have to jump to the 200GB $4 / month tier. I know in the big scheme of things $4 per month is not very much, but when flickr gives me 1TB for free, Dropbox several hundred GB for free and even OneDrive close to those numbers for free, I am hard pressed to justify the $4 / month in perpetuity. It would be great to have full sync of all edits etc across platforms but I think the iCloud prices are just gouging when compared to the market.

Just my $.02

Thx

 

[Bigeric23]

I get your point, but . . . 200 GB for $4; I would not call that pricey. And the convenience factor alone makes it a deal.

 

[John Yester]

All depends in what you get, what you pay for.

Great article speaking about each service and pro's and con's - Some have no problem managing multiple apps for additional storage and lack of features.

http://cameras.reviewed.com/features/14-foolproof-ways-to-keep-your-photos-safe-in-the-cloud

Flickr - no RAW support at all, and photo upload and organization tools are woefully limited. The new Camera Roll feature chronologically organizes your photos, and there's a new Flickr Uploadr for Mac, but both are still in public beta. But when you get 1 TB for free, I guess you can't really complain.

Dropbox - the only real downside is Dropbox's limited storage tiers. You either get 5 GB free, or have to pay $9 per month for 1 TB. Competitors like Apple and Google offer far more varied tiers and price points.

iCloud - The service automatically uploads all of your new photos, includes non-destructive editing tools, and even supports RAW files and video.

 

[birdman325]

Agreed. You do get what you pay for. Flickr and Dropbox are probably better characterized as "back up / repositories", i.e. a place to store your pictures even though they can technically be pulled down from various platforms.

I can imagine that once you start using the iCloud service, the seamless integration across all platforms and the ability to edit a picture on one device and then have the applied to that picture residing on all other devices makes picture management just that much easier. $4 / month may be a small price to pay for that convenience but like most things, I am working on convincing myself.

I guess if I decide after a month or 2 that I don't feel I am getting value add, I can just turn it off?

 

[John Yester]

Agreed. You do get what you pay for. Flickr and Dropbox are probably better characterized as "back up / repositories", i.e. a place to store your pictures even though they can technically be pulled down from various platforms.

I can imagine that once you start using the iCloud service, the seamless integration across all platforms and the ability to edit a picture on one device and then have the applied to that picture residing on all other devices makes picture management just that much easier. $4 / month may be a small price to pay for that convenience but like most things, I am working on convincing myself.

I guess if I decide after a month or 2 that I don't feel I am getting value add, I can just turn it off?

Yup you can turn it off when ever needed. Choose what you want on the cloud. If you upgraded to a bigger plan you can always downgrade to the free 5GB. But remember you will have to choose what is turn on or off, also related to back ups